Ezekiel 34:29 - Homiletics

A plantation of renown.

Restored Israel is to be a plantation of renown. The Israel of God, the Church of Christ, may be considered as of the same character.

I. THE CHURCH IS A DIVINE PLANTATION .

1. It is planted by God. A plantation is not a wild, primeval forest. It is a wood the trees of which have been carefully selected and set in the soil by the hands of men. God plants his people.

2. It is a community . A plantation is not a single tree, nor is it the scattering of a few separate trees over the fields. It is a collection of plants. "God setteth the solitary in families" ( Psalms 68:6 ). He has ordained domestic and social life. Christ founded the Church. Brotherly fellowship is a Divine ordinance.

3. It is carefully tended . The woodman visits the plantation, removing dead boughs, keeping the soil clean, destroying dangerous parasitic growths, etc. God does not leave his people alone. They are not like the neglected tropical forest, in which the wreck of the hurricane lies undisturbed and dead, and living trees are matted together with gigantic creepers and tangled with undergrowth; they are like a well-trimmed plantation.

4. It is expected to grow . A plantation in poor soil on a bleak hillside may be slow to thrive, and one on a hot sandy plain may even perish in drought. But healthy well-placed plants should grow from saplings till they become great trees.

II. THE CHURCH IS A PLANTATION OF RENOWN .

1. There is renown in the planting of it . It is customary for a member of the royal family who visits a country place to be asked to plant a tree. If the request is complied with, the young tree is watched with peculiar care and ever after pointed out with interest. It is a plant of renown. Not only has the Church been planted by God; it has been planted at the cost of the sacrifice of Christ. This plantation has been watered with the blood of Christ. It has the renown of the great sacrifice of Divine love consummated on Calvary.

2. There is renown in the history of it . There are trees of historic interest. Such was the oak of Mature, sacred to the memory of Abraham. Englishmen have found a romantic interest in King Charles's oak. Sherwood Forest is famous for Robin Hood and his merry men. The plantation of the Church has a very mixed history. The greatest trees are not always the most fruitful, and the greatest names in ecclesiastical history are not always those that deserve the highest honor. The public and official history of the Church is disgraced with many a deed of un-Christlike and worldly conduct. But the plantation as a whole, the general body of Christians, the quiet town and country congregations, have done a work of charity-enlightening, comforting, and saving—in all ages of Christendom. Here, rather than in her calendar of saints, the true renown of the Church is to be found, and this renown is the glory of Christ, whose body she is; so that her members must exclaim, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy Name be the glory."

3. There is renown in the destiny of it . The Church has a great future before it. It goes forward to realize a grand idea. It has to win such a name as it dares not wear as yet. But even now, as the army shares the renown of its captain, the Church is honored in its Head, to whom God has given "a Name above every name."